Acer’s $199 Chromebook lowers the Chrome OS barrier to entry

Acer undercuts Samsung by $50, sacrifices battery life to get there.

The prices for Chromebooks continue to come down: while Samsung went with an ARM-based processor to lower the cost of its $249 Chromebook, Google has just announced that Acer's new C7 Chromebook will be available starting November 13th for the even lower price of $199. The new model will be sold aside Samsung's $249 ARM Chromebook, $449 Chromebook 550, and $329 Chromebox.

This new Chromebook manages to pack in a 1.1GHz dual-core Intel Celeron 847 processor, a Sandy Bridge-based chip that's just a little slower than the 1.3GHz Celeron 867 chip used in the $449 Samsung Chromebook 550 introduced earlier this year. For most tasks, it should still handily beat the Exynos 5 chip in the ARM Chromebook and the Intel Atom chips in previous-generation Chromebooks, and its GPU is capable of decoding 1080p video.

The C7 also offers a healthy selection of ports and extras for the price: it features three USB 2.0 ports, an Ethernet jack, VGA and HDMI outputs, a webcam, and a headphone jack, though it excludes the SD card reader present in the other Chromebooks. It sports 2GB of DDR3 RAM and also comes with the same two-year, 100GB subscription to Google Drive that the ARM Chromebook includes, which would run you about $120 if you paid the standard monthly rate.

The newest Chromebook does cut some corners to reach this price point, however: it uses a 320GB spinning hard drive rather than solid-state storage; it weighs three pounds (up from the ARM Chromebook's 2.42 pounds); it includes 802.11n Wi-Fi but excludes any kind of Bluetooth connectivity; and it's rated for just 3.5 hours of battery life, down from the over six hours promised by both of Samsung's Chromebooks. Its Intel processor also needs a cooling fan, something that the ARM Chromebook is able to get by without.

If you want to dip your toe into the Chrome OS waters while spending the least amount of money possible, the C7 Chromebook looks like the best way to do it. Just be aware that such low prices usually come at the cost of features and build quality.

3.5 hours of battery life? Why would anyone buy this rather than a tablet?

For real. If I had to choose between this and a Nexus 7 for the same price, the Nexus wins every time. The only thing this Chromebook does better is having a hardware keyboard. Larger secondary storage matters not at all on a Chromebook.

I'm not surprised the rest of the hardware (battery and storage) is a bit lacking if it's got a Celeron 847 in it. That's a $134 dollar chip! (Edit - that may not be a current price but it's what Intel lists on their website and either way it's an expensive part compared to an Atom or ARM)

It's a very low price part. No money for anything better like an SSD when the CPU takes up a very significant proportion of the cost of the machine.

I think he's wondering how you need 320gb of drive space, when all it runs is the cloud.

Exactly. For the price of a 320gb HDD, they could probably have packed in a 32gb SSD. Sure you lose a ton of room, but what were you going to do with it anyway? Is storing music and video on a Chromebook even a thing? Meanwhile, an SSD at the same price would go a long way toward ensuring OS responsiveness in general use.

It's a very low price part. No money for anything better like an SSD when the CPU takes up a very significant proportion of the cost of the machine.

I think he's wondering how you need 320gb of drive space, when all it runs is the cloud.

I think the answer is the same. If you want to spend the very least you possibly can on storage, it could be that Acer buys these 320GB drives in enough quantities that they're cheaper than the 16GB SSDs in other Chromebooks. Either that, or they just wanted a nice big number to put on the spec sheet somewhere. :-)

Exactly. For the price of a 320gb HDD, they could probably have packed in a 32gb SSD. Sure you lose a ton of room, but what were you going to do with it anyway? Is storing music and video on a Chromebook even a thing? Meanwhile, an SSD at the same price would go a long way toward ensuring OS responsiveness in general use.

I don't think they could have got a 32GB SSD for the same price, even the smallest SSDs seem to be a bit more expensive than low end hard drives.

The cheapest (retail) hard drive I have seen for a laptop is a 250GB model with the 320GB costing a little bit more and of course Acer could have been offered an unbeatable price on the larger model. You don't save by trying to find anything smaller than that and it could well have been that opting for solid state instead would have prevented them from hitting that $199 target.

I think part of the problem might be that since it's using an Intel CPU and chip set they actually needed a SSD drive instead of emmc or other cheap method for more directly connecting to flash like you see on a phone/tablet. There are a fair number 16gb sd/microsd cards on newegg for under 10$ and lots more if raise the threshold to 15$. It's hard to imagine any hd of any size being cheaper than that so I assume they couldn't use simple flash and needed a SSD.

Looking at newegg I see a handful of 250/320gb 2.5 inch hd's for a little under 50$ but I actually see more ~30gb ssd's for less than 50$. Maybe they had existing inventory of hd's they wanted to get rid of or got a really good deal on them because they are old drives or they just couldn't guarantee a supply of the SSD's because they are also older models? Either way it doesn't seem to make sense.

Maybe the simplest answer is that this is really just the windows model with a different os loaded on it and the 320gb hd makes sense for windows because a 32gb ssd as the only HD in windows really isn't practical and they didn't bother to change it for the chromebook.

I think part of the problem might be that since it's using an Intel CPU and chip set they actually needed a SSD drive instead of emmc or other cheap method for more directly connecting to flash like you see on a phone/tablet. There are a fair number 16gb sd/microsd cards on newegg for under 10$ and lots more if raise the threshold to 15$. It's hard to imagine any hd of any size being cheaper than that so I assume they couldn't use simple flash and needed a SSD.

I might be wrong but I think SD cards are a bit too slow to be of any use in this case.

Quote:

Looking at newegg I see a handful of 250/320gb 2.5 inch hd's for a little under 50$ but I actually see more ~30gb ssd's for less than 50$. Maybe they had existing inventory of hd's they wanted to get rid of or got a really good deal on them because they are old drives or they just couldn't guarantee a supply of the SSD's because they are also older models? Either way it doesn't seem to make sense.

Here in the UK I was able to find laptop HDDs starting at around £24 excluding tax for a 250GB model, £31 for 320GB, with SSDs starting at £38 for a 30GB model. That's a big difference for a product like this that is designed to hit such a low price point.

Tablets are holding back the hardware race: it's not now such a problem to buy at the bottom of the market because websites need to perform on lower powered devices once again. Plus, all most users want is internet access, a screen, and a keyboard.

I might be wrong but I think SD cards are a bit too slow to be of any use in this case.

That is the way that Raspberry Pi does it though. A 32 or 64 SD card is going to give that HDD run for its money on cost, and take up a whole lot less space to boot. I'm still surprised that Acer didn't go with an Atom if they were wanted a minimum cost x86

I'm not surprised the rest of the hardware (battery and storage) is a bit lacking if it's got a Celeron 847 in it. That's a $134 dollar chip! (Edit - that may not be a current price but it's what Intel lists on their website and either way it's an expensive part compared to an Atom or ARM)

I wonder what the ARM A15 costs in comparison.

I smell a deal with Intel, it's a sandy bridge chip so they won't be making them anymore. It also looks to be pretty much exactly the same laptop as the cheapest 11.6" Aspire One but at a significantly lower price.

I can't see this being on the market for long, but it's a good way for Intel and Acer to both get into Chromebooks and also clear some old stuff lying around.

> Plus, all most users want is internet access, a screen, and a keyboard.

That is something people keep claiming but which doesn't really hold up to closer inspection. The statistics that people look at are how a vast majority of users' apps are on the Web these days. The stats that people keep ignoring is what percentage of apps _each individual user_ uses on the Web. Sure, maybe 80% of what I do is on the Web, but that other 20% isn't going anywhere.

This is the same reason that tablets are hardly going to outright replace PCs. They _complement_ PCs. Ultrabooks and laptops in general are certainly doing a number on traditional desktop PCs, but only because they do everything the PC does for the regular user (obviously some of us have needs that do still require a full workstation, but we're an increasingly niche case). Tablets are selling insanely well because they're new and the market isn't already saturated with people who have tablets that work just fine thank you; tons of people who might want one still don't have one, and the hardware is still evolving (unlike the PC hardware which hasn't changed significantly for a while now) so those who already bought a tablet have a strong reason to stay on the upgrade treadmill still. The sales figures tell you one thing only: that tablets sell well. Extrapolating other conclusions like "tablets are replacing PCs" is just silly if one looks at all the other data and usage patterns. Likewise, the idea that the PC is dying and hence a non-PC laptop form-factor device like Chromebooks will be in high demand is also silly.

Different devices have different use cases. Tablets are excellent media consumption devices. Phones are great ultra-portable travel-size in-your-pocket data companions. Full-power laptops (with full-power software stacks, not Chrome OS) fill in another niche in computer users' lives that the other new (and hence in the spotlight) device form factors simply do not fulfill.

Chrome OS on the other hand fills no niche. It is larger and less portable (especially with the battery life on this particular model, yuck) than a phone or tablet and yet is capable of _doing less_ (the tablet also does the Web, and has access to all those native tablet apps that Android/iOS/Win8 get). It is missing significant functionality compared to a PC laptop. The only use case that the Chromebook has going for it are people who only just browse the Web but also type a lot. These people don't exist in large numbers. Wikipedia editors maybe fit the bill. Excessively loquacious Facebooking teenagers who actually know how to spell and use formal grammar, perhaps, if any such creatures exist. Mayhap a small horde or two of forum trolls could use such a device. Most everyone else either just wants an easy media consumption device while out and about or lounging on the couch, which a tablet is good for, or are creating content and need useful content apps to do so, and need a PC of some kind.

As the price goes, remember that cheap doesn't matter; it's value that matters. At the end of the day, every dollar spent on a Chromebook is a dollar you could've spent on something else, be it part of the payment for a more useful electronics device or even just money spent taking yourself and a date out to a nice dinner. Buying a Chromebook for $200 is like buying a brand-new car for $2,000 that lacks a body, interior upholstery, transmission, radio, and brakes: sure it'll still move you from A to B, but it's still not a good deal compared to the real $20,000 models.

> Plus, all most users want is internet access, a screen, and a keyboard.

That is something people keep claiming but which doesn't really hold up to closer inspection. The statistics that people look at are how a vast majority of users' apps are on the Web these days. The stats that people keep ignoring is what percentage of apps _each individual user_ uses on the Web. Sure, maybe 80% of what I do is on the Web, but that other 20% isn't going anywhere.

This is the same reason that tablets are hardly going to outright replace PCs. They _complement_ PCs. Ultrabooks and laptops in general are certainly doing a number on traditional desktop PCs, but only because they do everything the PC does for the regular user (obviously some of us have needs that do still require a full workstation, but we're an increasingly niche case). Tablets are selling insanely well because they're new and the market isn't already saturated with people who have tablets that work just fine thank you; tons of people who might want one still don't have one, and the hardware is still evolving (unlike the PC hardware which hasn't changed significantly for a while now) so those who already bought a tablet have a strong reason to stay on the upgrade treadmill still. The sales figures tell you one thing only: that tablets sell well. Extrapolating other conclusions like "tablets are replacing PCs" is just silly if one looks at all the other data and usage patterns. Likewise, the idea that the PC is dying and hence a non-PC laptop form-factor device like Chromebooks will be in high demand is also silly.

Different devices have different use cases. Tablets are excellent media consumption devices. Phones are great ultra-portable travel-size in-your-pocket data companions. Full-power laptops (with full-power software stacks, not Chrome OS) fill in another niche in computer users' lives that the other new (and hence in the spotlight) device form factors simply do not fulfill.

Chrome OS on the other hand fills no niche. It is larger and less portable (especially with the battery life on this particular model, yuck) than a phone or tablet and yet is capable of _doing less_ (the tablet also does the Web, and has access to all those native tablet apps that Android/iOS/Win8 get). It is missing significant functionality compared to a PC laptop. The only use case that the Chromebook has going for it are people who only just browse the Web but also type a lot. These people don't exist in large numbers. Wikipedia editors maybe fit the bill. Excessively loquacious Facebooking teenagers who actually know how to spell and use formal grammar, perhaps, if any such creatures exist. Mayhap a small horde or two of forum trolls could use such a device. Most everyone else either just wants an easy media consumption device while out and about or lounging on the couch, which a tablet is good for, or are creating content and need useful content apps to do so, and need a PC of some kind.

As the price goes, remember that cheap doesn't matter; it's value that matters. At the end of the day, every dollar spent on a Chromebook is a dollar you could've spent on something else, be it part of the payment for a more useful electronics device or even just money spent taking yourself and a date out to a nice dinner. Buying a Chromebook for $200 is like buying a brand-new car for $2,000 that lacks a body, interior upholstery, transmission, radio, and brakes: sure it'll still move you from A to B, but it's still not a good deal compared to the real $20,000 models.

Right data, wrong conclusion. Everyone has multiple devices now, so why not another limited device. You can have a gaming pc, a tablet and a chromebook now for less than $1k. An ipad, mac mini and ipod, for the same $1k. Oh, and a console. This won't be as popular as tablets, but then most PCs aren't.

And the other commenters are right. This is just a rebadged netbook. I can't believe Google compromised on the SSD, that was integral to the value in my mind. My chromebook was a revelation in responsiveness 2 years ago.